Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Just like in the movies before the main feature starts, here's a Mixed Meters Trailer, teasing you with one minute of advertising for my next big piece of music entitled Poof, You're A Pimp. Look for it sometime in late April or maybe May.

Meanwhile, suppose you just wanted to simply hear my piece Wagner and Schubert Have Intercourse and not read all the upcoming palaver. Just scroll to the end of this post for the download link. It's easy. Or click HERE to skip down. Even easier. Yep.

Several years ago I had the idea to write a set of variations on not one but two musical themes. These would interact with each other according to their own musical nature and my own musical whimsey. In order to make the interweavings of such music easier to follow I decided to use familiar tunes not ones of my own creation.

First, while I personally knew both melodies equally well, hardly anyone else did. Someone without that double familiarity would not be able to follow my arcane melodic combinatoriality.

Second, I would never have gotten copyright permissions especially considering the violence I did to those pieces. To my surprise I discovered more similarities between them than I ever would have expected. You'll have to re-discover those similarities on your own.

So I searched for two other melodies, equally familiar to any listener and both from the public domain. I wanted "iconic" tunes. This is a cultural quality, not a musical one. "Iconic" musical material holds some distinct pre-existing personal meaning to a listener. I presume such meaning exists even before anyone hears my piece.

As a rough analogy, imagine a painter creating an image of a rose. Presumably each person who sees it will associate the rose picture, to some degree, with their own personal experiences with roses. Maybe they were swept off their feet by a dozen of them. Or maybe they were physically scarred by falling into a thorny rose bush. Seeing the picture brings the memory back.

Such pre-existent meanings in music have been studiously wiped out by generations of modernist, serialist and minimalist abstractionists. These composers have still been able to create iconic references when they wanted them by setting lyrics - like, for instance, a poem about a rose.

In contemporary culture, Ave Maria was sung prominently at memorials to 9/11 victims. Recently it was used as background to television commercials for the uber-violent movie Hitman. (Hear it in a theatrical trailer on YouTube)

Both melodies conjure imaginary women from revered mythologies. I want my use (and abuse) of these themes to push a few buttons. um, I mean, to refer to personal, pre-established meaning.

Having picked my starting material I did not pursue the project for quite a long time. But one day I thought up a title and I was suddenly ready to begin work. It was the perfect title to focus attention on the essential notion of combining two music themes into one piece. The title does this by associating the themes directly with their composers' persona.

I decided to call my piece Wagner And Schubert Have Sex.

I figured that alluding to the oft-discussed uncertain sexuality of these two famous composers might even attract some attention - or at least cause rolling of eyeballs. In our culture, sex sells.

I described my ideas to Leslie. She said "You should call it 'Wagner and Schubert Have Intercourse' instead. That way you can plausibly deny that you really mean actual SEX. The word 'intercourse' could refer to 'social intercourse'."

Good idea.

And so I hereby assert my right to plausibly deny that Wagner And Schubert Have Intercourse is actually about gay pedophilic sex between two immortals of western music, who, for all I know or care, never even met each other in person.

Remember, you're free to think anything you want about this music (or any other music). Listeners often think up all sorts of strange bizarre images that composers never intended. I expect any composer has the post-concert experience of listening to someone gush about their music-inspired visions of "purple teddy bears" or "inverted tropical islands" or "lightning powered racing cars".

If something in Wagner and Schubert Have Intercourse sparks your visual or dramatic imagination, that's perfectly fine. Run with it. But keep in mind that those images come from your head, not mine. All I've done is to write music using two famous familiar themes that you probably already know from past experience. And I also picked the title.

Should you think of a story to go along with my music - like a movie treatment - or maybe create artwork based on your reactions, please send it in. I'll post them. If you send anything x-rated please enclose it in a plain brown wrapper.

I expected that Wagner and Schubert Have Intercourse would last about eight or ten minutes max. It ended up being much longer and has five movements.

Movement three, which dwells on the accompaniment figures, was composed first. Next came movements two and four. The first and last movements started out as a long finale which I wanted to build to the climactic entry of the MYSTERY THEME. Only classical music nerds of the highest order are likely to recognize the MYSTERY THEME. This movement got out of hand and I split it in two. Placing the halves at beginning and end created a sort of a kind of a balance.

Also I realized that calling Wagner and Schubert Have Intercourse "variations" is misleading. There is no regular repeating harmonic structure, as in a classic theme and variations, to delineate one variation from the next. The themes are never manipulated by standard transformations like retrograde or inversion; they always appear going "forward". Sometimes the two themes are viciously simplified, emasculated even. At other times they are horribly distorted. They weave in and out of my own original material.

I realized it would be more helpful to compare this piece to Spy vs. Spy. In the well-known Mad Magazine cartoon feature there are two heroes (the Black Spy and the White Spy). I'm not saying that one of my themes is the "white" theme and the other "black". I am saying that the music might make more sense if you think of one of my themes as Franz and the other as Richard.

In the comic strip, the two spies battle it out in various scenarios. Sometimes one disappears for a long time only to reappear suddenly, strangely transformed or disguised. Sometimes one wins. Sometimes the other. And so it is with the Franz Theme and the Richard Theme in Wagner and Schubert Have Intercourse.

Last year, in the publicity surrounding the release of his book The Rest Is Noise, Alex Ross said:

A lot of 19th century music is about "the adventures of a theme." You recognize a theme, and then you start to hear its transformation; a second theme comes along, they start to interact, and you hear a story unfolding.

Finally, a few words about methodology. Each movement of Wagner and Schubert Have Intercourse (indeed, all of my recent music available on Mixed Meters) is created in Sibelius music notation software on my laptop and recorded in real time. All sounds are from synthesizer or sampler software running simultaneously on the same computer. This all happens at my local Starbucks (so it can't be any good.)

During composition I never use real time input or manipulation. I do not use any musical keyboards or control devices. Every note, every rhythm, every dynamic change, every tempo change, every pitch bend, every mistuning and every mistake is entered and edited only via the QWERTY keyboard.

More importantly, these mp3 files are NOT Midi sketches or mockups anticipating performance by some mythical super-talented ensemble. Don't be confused by the use of easy-to-recognize, acoustic orchestral sounds. My pieces are really just electronic "tape" pieces, although these days "real" electronic tape pieces are mostly about lush sounds which mine are not.

I consider the music I present on Mixed Meters as completed. Having gotten this far all I want to do now is write other pieces and I want to keep enjoying the doing of it. Any further work on this piece would be a waste of my time and any potential performance would be no fun at all for me.

The picture of the Wagner Tuba lovingly made into a lamp was taken at Mimi's Cafe #68 in the Los Feliz district of Los Angeles.Strictly German is an auto repair place in Pasadena which I've never used.

I'd like to thank my Beta-Listeners: Art, Ben, Bill, Eric, Israel, John and Scott. Their reactions didn't cause me to change the music at all, but they certainly had a big effect on my description of it.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

This is a follow up to the Mixed Meters post Reach For The Sky where I documented a magnificent local steeple - or is it a spire. Either way I started collecting more pictures of long thin things which point upwards - on churches, public buildings and private homes.

Most of these pictures were taken in Pasadena, although Altadena and Marina del Rey California are represented too.

The final photo was taken by my friends Jim, Marilynn and Robert Hildebrandt in London, England. They wondered what this amazing gilded spire or steeple might really be.

The correct answer, provided by the genuine Irishman Spike Milligan, comedian, Python-inspirer and supposed author of the supposed World's Funniest Joke, is "a rocket ship to the moon".

The Goon Shows were English radio comedies of the 1950s, written by Milligan and acted by him with the assistance of actor Peter Sellers, singer Harry Secombe, singer/pianist Ray Ellington, harmonica-ist Max Geldray plus a cast of one or two more. Silly and nonsensical when first broadcast, the subsequent fifty years have added a patina of insouciant surrealism which will make anyone, especially an American, scratch their head and grab a thin thing with lumps on.All the pictures enlarge when clicked.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

(Hey, later in this post you'll find a new 30 Second Spot to play. And it ends with a little story about Frank Zappa's music. Otherwise read on as I wander aimlessly through the Santa Clarita Valley and 35 years of my life.)

My friend Art Jarvinen asked me to substitute for him this week in two classes he teaches at the California Institute of the Arts, called "CalArts" by those in a hurry, the institution we both attended during the neolithic when the place was nearly new.

CalArts is where I studied for two years to be both a clarinetist and a composer. I hadn't visited in decades. Simply going to the place meant revisiting countless memories. I'm convinced that some are better unremembered.

After graduating, however, some people whom I had met at CalArts and some people they had introduced me to played a large part in determining my "career path". In retrospect I can't complain. As I was told recently, I must be a success because I'm making a living and my wife hasn't left me. Thanks honey.

Anyway, my clock radio got me out of bed Wednesday morning to strains of a Brahms clarinet sonata, a clear reference to my performer past (KUSC showed some mercy by only broadcasting half the piece.) After my morning puttering I drove up to the Santa Clarita Valley just to look around.

The buildings along Lyons Avenue and San Fernando Road hadn't changed much except for the names on the signs. I had no trouble finding the Saugus Cafe, a place I haunted as a CalArts student. It didn't seem to have changed much either. (See it on a map.)

After lunch I crossed San Fernando Road and made this panoramic shot of the cafe - I think it captures a certain essence of the place. (Click it to enlarge it.)

A few important transportation related pieces of earthbound flotsam attracted my attention - a hubcap and a caster. Yes, this is a very dry area. The high desert. Perfect for industry. Less perfect for human habitation.

I drove in the direction of CalArts which is located on McBean Parkway. When I first arrived here back in 1974 my friend Laurence Gold wrote to ask "What sort of people name a street McBean Parkway?"

I've always remembered L's question, partially because I didn't understand what bothered him about that name, but also because I had no good answer to give him. McBean was someone who worked for Newhall Land and Farm, the company responsible for the area's avaricious development.

Here's a picture, taken Wednesday, of a Newhall Land advertising sign near the CalArts campus proving that development continues. The backward pointing arrows tell people "Go back! The new tracts are back that way. Happiness awaits you in your new home". In this area what you're least likely to find at a place called "West Creek" or "River Village" ia any type of natural body of water.

I crossed over the freeway to where, during my student years, there had been only dry, barren chapparal and scrub. Now it is replete with the most standardized of tract housing and strip malls.

Naturally I gravitated toward the Starbucks. When I opened my car door I immediately saw a refreshing Starbucks ice blended drink which someone had left for me.

I sat at Starbucks long enough to create a new 30 Second Spot. I also heard an actual piece of classical music on their sound system (a bit of Rimsky Korsakov.) This is unusual because I've only noticed classical music in Starbucks at Christmas time.

My own little piece is not like Rimsky-Korsakov at all except for the use of sampled vocal sounds. It's entitled "For Just Like Two Minutes". I purloined the title from an otherwise unintelligible conversation between two young couples. "For Just Like Two Minutes" is 41 seconds long and is copyright (c) March 19, 2008 by David Ocker. Enjoy. Or not.

Finally it was time to approach the old school itself, now hidden behind the fully-grown trees which had been mere saplings during my student days. Standing before the front entrance I made another panoramic photograph. I was immediately struck by how little this view had changed. A few new signs, a few minor color changes and, of course, the trees were bigger. Click the picture to make that bigger too.

I wandered toward the cafeteria, site of some of my least memorable composition lessons ever, even though it boasted an awe-inspiring view in 1974 of green onion fields populated by migrant workers which was soon replaced by a view of now mansionized tract homes and green water-hazarded golf courses and which is now obscured by trees.

I had no difficulty navigating the long hallways, still barren save for signs announcing student events and opportunities. In B-Block, home to the music school, I confronted the same battered student lockers. I looked in on students learning African dance and music exactly as they had then.

Unlike the parking lot the inside was largely empty - possibly because of upcoming Spring Break. Student sartorial style hadn't changed much. I was clearly in a land where, outwardly at least, time had stood still.

Unlike during my time, the balcony around the music wing was open. I wandered outside to see this area I had never been allowed access to as a student. Here I took my final panoramic shot looking north towards more trees, more development and more mountains. Go ahead, click the picture.

I have a theory that the perceived quality of a chamber music concert is strongly affected by the size of the audience in comparison to the available space. In other words, if the chamber is nearly full the concert always seems better. If too few people are spread over too many seats, however, interest wanes. And so it seemed to be with my two classes.

The first class, in a small windowless room nearly filled with people sitting in a circle, struck me as being more successful than the second, held in a larger room with just a few students who sat against the back wall, some eating lunch, with an obligato flute player on that balcony flauting quite audibly just beyond the plate glass window as we tried to listen to music. Especially in the first class I had that old deja vu feeling. I felt like I had repeatedly been one of them long ago.

Back in the seventies in similar classes in these identical rooms we endlessly tried to verbalize about the essentially meaningless and therefore ineffable but inescapable thing called music with the fervent, almost religious, hope that something, anything, might prove useful in the future.

And so it still seems.

From my experience I tried to hint that the things and the words of a Cal Arts education have not been terribly useful to me. But I do owe a gratitude to those of my fellow students, at least those I have managed to remain in contact with, who in so many ways have been really important influences. So thanks, Art, for asking me to substitute teach. But please wait a very very long time before you ask again.

As I walked into the building Thursday, over near the Modular Theater, I could hear familiar music wafting from the Main Gallery. First I identified it as brass music, then as jazz (a strange sensation since there had been no jazz at CalArts in my years) and finally as Frank Zappa's piece Big Swifty.

It was being rehearsed by a brass quintet plus a drum kit. They were playing after the fashion of the Meridien Arts Ensemble. I watched anonymously as they worked out phrasing and tempo and tuplets and tried to find the right feel as they wondered who the strange old guy looking over their shoulders might be.

An hour later, after my class work was done, I walked to my car. Coming the other way was the Big Swifty trombonist. I introduced myself. He said they were hoping to learn the 3rd movement from SinisterFootwear soon. I'm definitely impressed.

Read about what Art Jarvinen was doing while I was subbing for him here.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Today it was a positive shock to read the Los Angeles Times obituary of flutist Dorothy Stone, one of the pillars of the California EAR Unit and priestess of new music in Southern California (and most everywhere else as well).

I had opportunities to work with Dorothy when I was a clarinetist and composer. She was an exceptionally talented and fearless performer. The paper says she was 49 years old - that's way too young.

Several years ago Dorothy's husband, composer Lucky Mosko, passed away suddenly as well, compounding the sadness of this news.

My condolences go out to her family and especially to her colleagues in the EAR Unit.

UPDATE: Saturday, March 15, 2008

After the memorial service for Dorothy at a place called Eternal Valley, I walked out of the chapel to see this brilliant blue, white and green panorama. As clear as a perfect flute note. You could see forever.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

I started working as a music copyist for composer John Adams about 1985 on a little piece he called Hamonielehre. I've worked on a lot more of his music since then.

We live in different California urban areas positioned on different cultural tectonic plates. Our communications have always been principally by remote technologies: first by phone, then by fax and now by email. It's rare for us to see each other, rarer still to talk in person. Our last conversation happened during a hair-raising night-time rush hour drive through Palo Alto, California.

Lately John has occasionally mentioned "my book" but never really explained what he meant. It turned out to be his autobiography entitled Hallelujah Junction which is also the name of his piano duet which is also the name of an actual junction. (See it in Google Maps by clicking here.)

More surprisingly, last week he honored me by sending actual Word files of an actual complete draft. So far I've gotten as far as chapter five (out of fifteen.)

I asked his permission to quote from Hallelujah Junction here. He agreed but added that the quotes I picked were "funny". I intend them as "teasers", little bits to make you wonder just what he's talking about. Maybe they'll give an impression of his prose style.

The real point is that I am reading John Adams' autobiography. And you are not.

I'm finding an awful lot of interesting stuff I never knew. (Anything in purple is a quote.)

Another patient walked around with a harmonica stuffed into his mouth. When he smiled his face became the front grille of an automobile. He serenaded us by moving the harmonica with his lips while conducting with his two free hands.

The trip was symphonic in form, with an exposition, development and recap. Or maybe it was a rondo…I forget.

If I’d learned anything from John Cage, there was certainly no evidence in my Quintet for Piano and Strings, music that sounded like it could have been composed in 1910 Vienna by a young man bent on committing a triple murder-suicide.

Tacky, laughably hokey strip clubs lined both sides of neighboring streets, and each had its own sleazy barker, dressed in regulation loud, horrific Seventies-style bellbottoms and Hawaiian shirt. His job was to coax the reluctant tourist into the dark interior. “Come on in, sir, take a peek. It’s on the house. Ladies invited, too.”

... and then staying up nights until the building closed, huddled in my office with a soldering iron, my desktop covered with surplus resistors, capacitors and circuit board chips that I had scrounged at a flea-market near the Oakland airport.

I vividly recall standing patiently in the park with my microphone poised over a pile of dog poop, recording the buzz of several blissed-out flies as they hovered over their find.

Between the toxin of the bee stings and the shock of hearing my piece for the first time, my nervous system began yet again to go into red alert. An hour later I found myself on a bed in the emergency room of the Santa Cruz hospital connected to an IV dripping adrenaline into my arm while a man who’d nearly lost his finger to a chainsaw moaned in the neighboring bed.

The top picture is John at Stanford University after the premier of his Son of Chamber Symphony. The second picture, which appeared in Mixed Meters previously, was taken in Disney Hall. Click pictures for enlarged views. The music bit is John's handwriting.

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Via the blogosphere (here and then here) I've just learned of the death of Leonard Rosenman. His well known career as a film composer is documented here and here. Other obits here, here and here.

I first encountered Rosenman during my grad studies at CalArts when he gave a talk to music and film students. He told how he had introduced contemporary musical techniques into his scores only to have an irate studio exec (could it have been Jack Warner) storm onto the recording stage demanding to know why so many of the musicians were just resting. The guy thought that if the musicians were being paid they should all be playing all the time.

Years later - think the 90s - I engraved several of Rosenman's chamber works and I therefore came to know the man. On entering his studio, over a garage up a long driveway from a Hollywood Hills canyon road, you couldn't help but immediately notice the two Oscars and two Emmies behind his desk (all somewhat the worse for their exposure to our smoggy L.A. air.) Although he'd been in Los Angeles about 40 years he gave the instant impression that he was still very much a New Yorker.

He had a penchant for saying exactly what he thought. I remember him reminiscing that his career had suffered because he had told a few of the wrong people to "go to hell". His most famous quote, said while receiving his second Oscar, "I write original music, too, you know.", revealed exactly how he felt about popular perceptions of his work.

It wouldn't take long before Len told anyone that he wrote his own music beyond film and television scores. He'd sit down at the piano (he was an excellent pianist) to demonstrate whatever he was working on at that moment. Many Hollywood composers think they deserve more notice for their serious work - it's like a syndrome. I'd guess that most have unperformed symphonies in a deep desk drawer the way everyone else in L.A. is supposed to have a movie script.

I think Leonard Rosenman was right: he did deserve greater respect for his "other" music. He had an amazing creative talent although he is best known for only certain parts of it. I will always wonder whether he might have achieved the respect he craved had he stayed in New York instead of coming to Los Angeles where his music became a small but important and honored part of a vast industry rather than a body of one individuals personal artistic expression.